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John Thornell, spot 40 bomb-carrying Bf 109s
flying low toward the beachhead at 300 feet.
When the German pilots spotted the Mustangs
as they turned in to attack, they salvoed their
bombs and split up, but not before Thornell got
two of them for his 17th and 18th victories.
The day ended with Fourth’s Ralph Hofer
making history as the first Allied fighter to
land at the advanced strip near Grandcamp in
Normandy after his oil system was damaged
by small-arms fire during a strafing pass near
Vire. When he returned to Debden the next day,
he brought a German helmet and canteen and
a German-language version of “Mein Kampf,”
that he had bartered from the GIs near the front,
which only added to his “screwball” reputation.
Throughout the battles over Normandy, the
cloudy skies and rain would give cover to fighters
of both sides, with units chancing on each other
becoming involved in sharp, vicious fights.
American pilots also received a piece of
personal gear that gave them a real advantage
over their opponents - the “G” suit, which fit
around the waist and thighs. The suit was plugged
into the vacuum system, and under increased
G-loads during air combat the suit tightened
around the thigh and waist, preventing blood from
pooling in the lower extremities and preventing
the pilot blacking out while maneuvering. Ninth
Air Force had been aggressive in obtaining the
G-suits and all the P-47 groups in IX Tactical
air Command were using it by D
-
Day. VIII fighter
command first began getting the equipment
shortly after D
-
Day and all groups had the gear
by mid-summer. Bob Wehrman recalled,
“We had
just gotten the K-14 ‘no missum’ gyro gunsight
in July, and then we got the new G-suit. Between
the two pieces of gear and the new P-51Ds, we
could outfly the enemy under just about all
conditions. In April, the Fourth had tried using
the British G-suit, which used water, but it
had been discarded for being uncomfortable.
As Wehrman described it, You didn’t even notice
you had the new suit till it started squeezing your
legs and you didn’t black out as before.”
On June 16, the 357th’s Lt. Colonel Tom Hayes
used an old trick he had learned while flying
P-39s in New Guinea to attack a rail yard. The
group only had 108-gallon paper tanks available,
which provided far more fuel than they would
need for the mission to the St. Pierre marshalling
yard outside Paris. He instructed the pilots to
drop their tanks, which were about three-fourths
full, on the railyard in their first pass. Then they
returned and set the tanks ablaze with gunfire.
There were four large explosions and the target
was on fire when the Mustangs departed. Word
got around among the groups about the 357th’s
success with using drop tanks as “incendiaries”
for strafing.
At the end of June, the Jagdwaffe had lost 230
pilots killed and 88 wounded, with 551 aircraft
A P-51D of the 361st Fighter Group’s 375th Fighter Squadron banks away from camera. Note that the D
-
Day ID stripes on the fuselage do not carry around the bottom
of the radiator. This was frequently done with these stripes, due to the P-51 being so low to the ground. (USAF Official)
Luftwaffe heavy
losses
HISTORY
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